


Must've caught a good look at you

by muzzlemess (rustywrites)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Gen, Gerard Keay Lives, It/Its Pronouns For Michael | The Distortion (The Magnus Archives), M/M, POV Outsider, Spiders, The End Fear Entity (The Magnus Archives), The Spiral Fear Entity (The Magnus Archives), The Web Fear Entity (The Magnus Archives), it's not particularly graphic or anything, they just come with the territory when annabelle's around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27224524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rustywrites/pseuds/muzzlemess
Summary: Annabelle Cane had seen a lot in her life. In many ways, that was a key part of her job -- to watch from a distance, to carefully and invisibly course correct. This meant she was arguably one of the most well informed people in the world, outside of The Beholding and its know-it-all cronies. But even then -- on a good day she'd be happy to go toe-to-toe with someone like The Archivist just to see who the real ceaseless watcher was in all of this.Not that she'd ever stoop so low, and not that she'd ever be so petty. But shecouldhold her own, if it ever came down to it, and she kept that fact very close to the tangle of sinew and spider web that made up her heart.(In which Annabelle Cane takes an accidental interest in the unexpected connection between The Distortion and an arsonist)
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael | The Distortion
Comments: 7
Kudos: 84





	Must've caught a good look at you

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise! It's another Gerry/Michael AU. 
> 
> This one's actually _almost_ canon compliant. I promised myself I wanted to do something that was a.) a one-and-done, b.) outsider POV, and c.) as close to actual events as I could possibly get it while still being blatantly self indulgent in my silly little ship.
> 
> I think the divergent parts will be very obvious, so I'm not going to bore you or note you to death on them. Hopefully they explain themselves as you go. 
> 
> As always, content warnings are about what you'd expect from a regular episode. 
> 
> Title is from **[Hozier's NFWMB.](https://open.spotify.com/track/2iQYqdalv245vrCEM4W9N9?si=73zJ8CQnRNuJxAPP-9fkkg)**

Annabelle Cane had seen a lot in her life. In many ways, that was a key part of her job -- to watch from a distance, to carefully and invisibly course correct. This meant she was arguably one of the most well informed people in the world, outside of The Beholding and its know-it-all cronies. But even then -- on a good day she'd be happy to go toe-to-toe with someone like The Archivist just to see who the real ceaseless watcher was in all of this.

Not that she'd ever stoop so low, and not that she'd ever be so petty. But she _could_ hold her own, if it ever came down to it, and she kept that fact very close to the tangle of sinew and spider web that made up her heart.

But regardless of her own place on the metaphorical eldritch totem pole, she was an observer, first and foremost. She knew what people were getting up to and, more importantly, how and when to tug on their strings. So much of puppeteering is really in the waiting. Not many people understand that, you see -- always so eager and so trigger happy. She'd seen more than her fair share of perfectly good plans go to absolute waste just because someone got a little impatient.

It was always such a shame.

But that wasn't the point. The point was that she knew people. Annabelle Cane was, if you wanted to be reductive about it, a sort of socialite in their little world -- if socialites were rarely seen from or heard from and were only sort of vaguely understood to exist at all. She knew what everyone was up to at any given moment, who they were associating with, what they were working towards. She knew so much that it was actually mostly boring to watch. People, even people who aligned themselves to the Powers like herself, tended to fall into routines and routines were good, yes, and useful, but not the most interesting thing to see over and over again.

So you can imagine her surprise -- and delight -- when she first began to notice that things in one particular corner of her carefully woven domain were starting to get a little strange.

It was not the first time she'd had to pay special attention to The Distortion. She doesn't hate The Spiral and its ilk, but she does find herself annoyed by them more often than not -- Es Mentiras and its worshipers tended to be some of the most resistant to her pull, worshiping chaos and confusion over order. But that was fine, in the end -- a good lie was a good lie, no matter which mouth was telling it or which throat was forming the words and sure, she'd generally had to take a more hands-off approach with It Is Not What It Is than she usually preferred but that was all well and good. Nothing she couldn't adjust to.

But when Gertrude Robinson had thrown a wrench into The Great Twisting by shoving one of her own straight into its heart, things had all gone a bit sideways. The Distortion earned itself a name, no matter how much it did not seem to want one, and, after retreating for some time to lick its wounds and adjust to its new lot in life, resurfaced as Michael who Annabelle would graciously describe as being an obnoxious and volatile twat.

The Distortion, uncorrupted, was irritating, yes, but irritating in the way that a rainy day can be irritating when it happens to ruin your trip to the beach. Michael, on the other hand, was something else entirely. It somehow managed to pick up the most _infuriating_ blend of human belligerence and emotional turmoil while also holding onto the worst traits of Es Mentiras, resulting in a chaotic cocktail that was hard to predict and even harder to influence.

So Annabelle had done the only thing she could do, given the situation, and kept a close eye on things, adjusting accordingly and mostly trying to stay out of its way. She'd even gone as far as to talk with it a few times, here and there, just to gauge its… _mood_...now that it had a mood to speak of. And for the most part, annoyance aside, Michael proved to be a perfectly personable creature, at least by their standards. It seemed less interested in the politics of their world and their masters and much more fixated on crushing the still beating heart of Gertrude Robinson in its mangled, uncanny hands.

It was a noble goal, really. Extremely petty, but noble.

She'd wished it luck on more than one occasion, and even gone as far as to promise she wouldn't interfere if an opportunity presented itself for it to do just that. It was a lie, of course, she'd interfere if she damn well pleased, but in the moment the gesture felt nice and it had made Michael laugh, that dizzying, horrible sound that Annabelle both hated and loved in equal measure.

For a long while, that was where they had left it. Annabelle kept a passive eye on Michael from a distance and just dealt with the (mostly) lowkey irritation of its general existence.

But then that human boy had come into play.

Annabelle had, of course, been very well aware of Mary Keay and her absolutely miserable life, so filled by the delusion of grandeur that Annabelle had barely had to tug her strings at all to use her as a pawn in their great and cosmic game. The birth of the child hadn't been a surprise -- she was not someone who was easily, if ever surprised -- but she'd spent that first decade or so scarcely considering him at all beyond the umbrella of usefulness represented by his mother. This wasn't to say that she'd underestimated him by any means, but with Mary around he'd just never been that engaging.

Then there was the nasty business with the book and the ghost -- something that Annabelle would have _loved_ to take credit for, by the way, but had in truth had very little hand in -- and Gertrude Robinson had entered the scene and, well.

It would be accurate to say that, at that point, Annabelle had started having to make adjustments to her carefully plotted script on the fly, because suddenly Gerard Keay was upstaging virtually everyone around him and drawing more attention, thanks to Robinson and her endless meddling, than Annabelle would have liked.

Attention, specifically, from Michael.

It was all a bit of a mess, really. And Annabelle did not appreciate messes.

The book burning wasn't ideal -- not debilitating, sure, but not ideal. It was something she would really appreciate stopping, if only to make things neater.

For a while, she'd hoped that Michael's sudden and seemingly all consuming obsession with the boy had been yet another of The Spiral's agonizingly long games of cat-and-mouse. She had always respected it for that, really -- liked how patient it could be when it really wanted -- but opportunity after opportunity to finally put an end to it and just kill the little bastard came and went, she began to get concerned.

Gerard Keay's pesky arson hobby was being actively subsidized by The Archivist and The Eye and yet Michael flitted around him like a poorly behaved, overeager dog. It had even stepped up to _protect_ the boy from some of Rayner's loyalists at one point which, Annabelle could admit, was actually rather funny in the moment, but represented what she could now definitively call a concerning development for The Distortion.

Maybe those meddlesome human emotions weren't entirely focused on Gertrude Robinson's untimely demise after all.

She'd tried to ask about it just once, cornered Michael with relative ease at one of its own doors. She'd even deigned to come in person, a gesture of good faith, rather than sending some of her children. When she knocked, Michael had approached from behind her, as though it had been waiting and watching for her all along. She knew showmanship when she saw it.

Michael's voice had been like sticky candy, fly paper and poison, when it had opened the conversation with a cheerful: "To what do I owe the pleasure?" It even looked mostly human that day, Annabelle noted. A bundle of very well disguised knives.

She had known that asking about the boy directly would be a waste of both of their time, so she'd gone with the less obvious. "How is your plan to kill The Archivist going?"

Michael had grinned and grinned and _grinned_ at that, liquid; its changing expression like oil and water. It probably would have given Annabelle vertigo had she had the human inner ears to experience it. "Now I thought plans were more your domain, Ms. Spider, so why don't you tell me?"

Obnoxious, as always. Annabelle remembers trying very hard to not roll all eight of her eyes. "You're getting distracted by the boy," she'd said. Not a threat, an observation -- but one that made Michael's shape contort a bit, anxious for a fight it wouldn't find. That wasn't why she'd come.

"What I choose to do with my prey," it had defended, emphasizing the word 'prey' as though Annabelle couldn't see directly through the artifice of it all, "is none of your business, Spider, and you would be wise to remember that."

Annabelle had grinned then, just as dangerous as Michael but perhaps not as wide. She'd even reached up to brush her hand against his cheek, just the right amount of condescending, just the right sort of push. "Now, now, Michael. We both know that if there's anyone here in danger of forgetting themselves, it isn't me. Please, enjoy your game as much as you'd like, but remember who owns the board you are playing on."

The exchange was a very fine example of her work, in her humble opinion. And it felt like the perfect application of pressure to spur Michael along and get rid of that bastard boy sooner rather than later -- but then.

She probably _could_ have seen the boy getting sick, had she been bothering to look. But The End had a way of keeping things from her -- from all of them, really -- so maybe it was a moot point after all.

For a very brief moment, after the tumor had taken hold, Annabelle had honestly let herself believe that her prolonged period of low grade annoyance was drawing to a close.

That should have been the end of it.

It wasn't.

First, it was Robinson and her god forsaken book -- the same one that had claimed Mary Keay, Annabelle noted with some interest and then things had gone from strange to downright _unexpected_.

If ever there had been a chance for Michael to finally claim Robinson's life like it so wanted, it would have been then -- she had been so exposed, Annabelle couldn't have orchestrated it better herself -- but Michael had only lashed out at Robinson long enough to _take the god forsaken book_ and _leave_ , which left Robinson to deal with the American authorities, still very much alive.

It made no sense, even for The Spiral. It enraged her as much as it intrigued her which, in her line of work, was rarely a good sign. She could admit that.

But at least it wasn't boring.

And really, the squabbles of The Spiral and The Eye over a book burning nuisance weren't _that_ terrible, regardless. Annabelle had dealt with and calculated around much, much worse, so sure, it may have been against her better interest to allow whatever this was to progress untouched by The Web, but she was invested now, like as not.

Now, she may be an observer but she was no voyeur -- she got no pleasure in the act of watching things at their most vulnerable. She certainly didn't feel sympathy, to be sure, but it wasn't in any way satisfying. At best, she could view the emotional outbursts of the things caught in her web as tools to be used when and if the time came, never more -- but something about watching Michael that first night, with the The End's book, still bloody from the day's events, made her feel as though she was seeing something she shouldn't be privy to.

She hadn't gone in person, of course -- hadn't seen Michael in the proverbial flesh since that day outside its door -- so the effect was somewhat dulled by the second hand nature of the story, retold through the mouths of her children as they had seen it but --

The Distortion, hamstrung and corrupted and mixed in with a human as it may be, should not be able to weep. That much she knew.

And when her children had described the way it wailed, their mandibles leaking fluid, their insides scrambled by the sound, their eyes ruptured and destroyed by it, Annabelle knew that something was very, very wrong.

The boy had been bound, yes, and the binding had held, but The End's grasp was so cruel especially when it was prolonged. And Michael should not have a heart that could break at all, but somehow it did and it could. Her children, the ones that had survived the experience, told her about it so plainly she'd be a fool not to see it. And when it read the words and summoned the ghost, reality itself had tried to turn inside out with the force of the grief it should not be able to feel.

Annabelle very rarely adapted a purely hands-off mode of operation, even for the easiest and most straightforward of her schemes. It was pride in her work, she would explain to anyone who asked -- though no one ever did -- that drove her to put a personal touch on every string she wove. But here, she decided, she would make an exception.

She'd let this -- whatever this was -- play out the way nature, or perhaps The Spiral, intended. Unfiltered and unmanipulated. And if that came back to bite her, so be it -- she'd survived far worse. And ultimately, if Michael had somehow _fallen in love_ , the sound of which was so ridiculous Annabelle felt absurd for even thinking it, then all the better -- let it be distracted. She could work around the obstruction and, with any luck, be entertained all the while.

It definitely wasn't because she was feeling invested or, god forbid, sympathetic to something like _The Distortion_.

Absolutely not.

It did, somehow, continue to take her by surprise, though, which was certainly an added bonus. She hadn't felt genuinely bored in a great long while.

The plot to murder Gertrude Robinson was all but put on hold, as far as Annabelle could tell -- and she was pretty well versed in this things, so she ought to know. That, or it had simply understood that Gertrude Robinson was destined for death with or without its interference. Jonah Magnus took care of it, eventually, wearing his new face. It was inelegant and messy, amateur work, but it did get the job done and Annabelle had only had to intervene in the slightest and most abstract ways to make it happen, so she'd still consider it a win.

Michael, it would seem, somehow no longer cared. It kept the book with it everywhere it went, or tucked safely away in its halls where Annabelle could not see or go. It had never been what she would describe as 'single minded' in its devotion to anything, even its agonizingly long kills, but it certainly seemed to be focused intently on this objective, whatever this objective actually was. She tried to avoid feeling out her web too far where it was concerned now, not wanting to spoil it for herself. It was silly, she could admit, but she owed it to herself to relax sometimes, didn't she? And she had plenty of failsafes in place to ensure that no unnecessary domino effects would be happening without her intervention.

Though she did become a bit more concerned when Oliver Banks got involved.

Or, more accurately, when Michael had _forced_ Oliver Banks to become involved.

Banks was, similar to Michael, a more traditionally irritating element to deal with, but unlike Michael, he was also much harder to spy on. Where Michael and The Spiral were lies and delusions and unpredictable, impossible patterns; Banks and The End were calculated and cold, much like Annabelle herself. They knew each other's tricks far too well, and, more importantly, cared enough about their privacy to be careful about it. She tried to send her children to eavesdrop, but none returned alive.

It was frustrating to be kept in the dark, but whatever the two of them discussed, it _changed_ something.

By this point, Annabelle was becoming rather accustomed to being caught off guard where Michael was concerned, but it was the sort of low grade subversion of expectation that comes from very mundane chance, nothing that made her genuinely pause and take stock.

Gerard Keay being _unbound_ from The End's book, though. That was something that made her stop completely.

As far as Annabelle knew, it was impossible. Resurrection was well within their purview -- Magnus and Rayner and the like could speak to that more than she could -- but it was only ever resurrection in name, stealing a life for a life, shedding fragile human flesh for something more durable, a temporary fix. The End did not play nice, nor did it compromise. The only way to escape its claim was to avoid it all together, as far as she knew.

And she did -- know, that is. She knew quite a lot, in fact. On more than one occasion, pompous Jonah Magnus had her master to thank for his continued existence, though he would certainly never admit or accept that.

But there he was. Gerard Keay, somehow back in the flesh, looking for all the world as shocked as Annabelle felt. And Michael, looking somehow more and less human than Annabelle had ever seen him, practically crumbled on the ground at Gerard's feet, one long and dangerous hand coiled loosely, harmlessly, around one of Gerard's absolutely corporeal ankles.

Annabelle had averted her gaze after that, plucked the strings and called her children home, feeling _far_ too close to The Eye's filthy voyeurism for her liking. She couldn't claim to understand what had happened or why, but she knew at this point it had very little to do with anything she had or would ever orchestrate.

It would bruise her ego if it didn't please her in a strange way, too. Not because she wanted to see The Distortion _happy_ , good lord, no, but because it likely meant that The Spiral's throat incarnate or whatever it liked to call itself would no longer be all that invested in disrupting the status quo. And that was something Annabelle could get behind.

Still, she did make an effort to seek Oliver out when it was all said and done, only because she couldn't help but be curious.

Oliver Banks was a surprisingly easy man to talk to, compared to many of their kind. Much easier than Michael, at least, and more transparent -- The End was not invested in hiding or obfuscation, unsurprisingly, which meant getting answers from it was typically a simple but ultimately very grim ordeal. It was unlikely to ever tell you something that you wanted to hear.

So when he had accepted Annabelle's very polite invitation to a cup of tea at a local cafe, she was in great spirits.

Though said spirits did dip, somewhat, when she approached the table to find him smiling at her like he already knew exactly what this was all about.

He probably did. The End may be straight to the point, but it could be _insufferably_ smug. She tended to forget about that when she didn't need to remember it.

"Annabelle, good to see you." He politely stood up to greet her, which she did appreciate, even though they both knew the platitude was a lie. That just wasn't how meetings worked in their world, and never would be.

"And you, though I have to say, you've been very busy breaking rules, Oliver." Better to cut straight to the chase with this one. No use dancing around it.

Oliver's smile only turned up a bit at the corners, knowing and completely unsurprised. For such a somber man, he certainly could emote when he wanted to. He took a sip of his tea before he bothered to reply at all. "I'm not so sure it's your place to say which rules I have to uphold in the first place, Ms. Cane."

A dazed looking barista brings Annabelle a steaming cup of tea all her own, despite the fact that she hadn't ordered anything or even approached the counter at all. She says nothing as she sets it down and turns away.

"I would prefer to not play games if we can avoid it. Would it help to assure you that I am here only out of personal, rather than professional, curiosity? In many ways you've done me a favor by keeping The Distortion distracted with its little boytoy." A single spider slides a packet of sugar across the table as Annabelle speaks, which she scoops up and pours into her cup.

Oliver laughs at that, the sound of funeral bells, melodic and deep. "I can appreciate the distinction, certainly, but I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed with the answer. There were no rules broken -- just an even exchange made. You'd be surprised at how compelling The Spiral can be when it wants to be, and how sensible."

Annabelle's well groomed eyebrows tick up to her hairline. "You _compromised_ with it? And here I thought _I_ was going soft in watching this whole farce play out unimpeded."

"Not a compromise, no." Oliver folds his hands against the tabletop, very casually. "An exchange, as I said. There are those who believe themselves to be outside of The End's grasp and The Catalogue Of The Trapped Dead has been used to aid them in ways we can no longer abide."

"Ah. So Michael offered the book in exchange for the boy's soul?"

"No, it offered its own _and_ the book in exchange for the boy's soul." Oliver's grin is a bit more guarded at that, like he's telling a joke that only he is in on. It makes Annabelle blink, actually taken by surprise yet again because _oh_ now that is very, very interesting indeed.

"Since when does The Distortion have a soul to offer?"

"Since Gertrude Robinson forced one upon it." He shrugs, easily. "I'm sure you can appreciate the opportunity both I and my master saw in this particular offer. While we are The Coming End That Waits For All And Cannot Be Ignored, Michael's current station places it in a very strange sort of limbo indeed. It very well could have escaped our grasp to rejoin The Spiral when it is ultimately killed -- and it _will_ be killed -- but now, well. We do love a guarantee."

Annabelle allows herself a beat to process this. She wishes she would have come up with this one herself, if she's being honest. The very best laid plans are built on patience, something The End has in no short supply. And eventually, Michael would be forced to pay what was owed. She cannot imagine the agony it will experience when it's ripped, well and truly, away from the heart of Es Mentiras, to be consumed by a proper Death. If its erratic behavior thus far, since it had been so cruelly spliced into being known, were any indication, it would be quite a sight to see.

She makes a note to continue paying close attention to that particular thread in her web.

"Very clever," she finally allows. "Assuming It Is Lies was not doing what it does best, of course." There was always the chance, after all. The Powers' games were rarely so linear as to be beholden to promises or wagers.

But Oliver only shrugs again. "It is harder to cheat us than you might imagine, Annabelle, even with the best laid plans. And we are more than happy to wait."

She knows more than most just how true that is.

It's several weeks after her exchange with Oliver that she starts hearing the whispers -- the Keay boy isn't someone to be touched, they say -- people and creatures of all alignments coming to the consensus in a rapid-fire cascade. It would seem his miraculous revival had caught more than just her attention, and some of the lower level devotees to the entities had foolishly read the news as an opportunity to try and demonstrate their faith, or perhaps a chance to topple the balance in their favor.

They were, Annabelle had heard, dealt with swiftly and violently.

Word spread fast that anyone who so much as got near Gerard Keay would find themselves face to face with an incomprehensible beast in the form of a very hungry door -- or worse, in the form of a man who would invite them closer with a smile and eyes that looked like the space between channels on a television.

Regardless, their fates would be the same.

It did make Annabelle smile, privately, to see The Distortion so gleefully _tamed_ like this. So flagrant in its devotion to this fragile human boy. The Spiral certainly didn't seem to mind, not with its steady stream of offerings in the shape of would-be usurpers.

It was nice, really. Romantic, even, if she was going to allow herself to think so gently. It would never last, of course -- if The End didn't come calling first, something else would. Perhaps it would be her, eventually. She could make no promise nor guarantee that she would never have to yank on those threads, reorganize their trajectories into something that more suited her needs, but for now?

For now, she could allow herself the luxury of being pleasantly surprised. It was certainly anything but routine -- and as it turned out, even she could learn to love a surprise or two.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I've been trying to be more active on my [fandom side twitter](https://twitter.com/muzzlemess), which is mostly very, very erratic. But that's where you can find me!


End file.
